Pre-K improves chances for success

Nelson Andrews

Editor's note: The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, prompted by reports last week regarding an ongoing Vanderbilt study of the value of pre-kindergarten benefits, shares with Tennessean readers still-timely words of the late Nelson Andrews, former chairman of the Tennessee State Board of Education and former chairman of The Community Foundation.

If we consider the learning process as an assembly line ? we find that often our first reaction is to say the assembly line is broken in high school - after all, that's where the dropouts occur.

But although high school is where the dramatic evidence of the system's failures is recognized, that is not when the break occurs, and therefore, that is not the point at which it can be fixed. By then, it is too late!

Looking at the assembly line we realize the following:

? If a child does not read with a reasonable degree of comprehension upon completing the third grade, research tells us that the likelihood of that child becoming a dropout is well over 90 percent. In our public education system K-12, almost one-third of our kids drop out and, as early as third grade, we know who is destined to be in the failed one-third.

? So we look further back toward the beginning of our assembly line and find children not prepared to enter kindergarten are the children, by and large, who don't achieve reading comprehension by the third grade.

? So we look even farther back and find that 90 percent of the architectural structure of the brain is built in the first three years of life. Children are born with a billion brain cells, and no more are created after birth. The way these cells are "wired," or linked together, is controlled by the infant's experiences during their first three years.

? Proper brain development affects language and thinking skills, and also the growth of their emotional, social, behavioral and moral capacities. Without such brain development, scientists tell us, they will miss a "window of opportunity" that closes forever as they leave those early years.

We know for a fact where the educational assembly line is broken, and we know it is in those formative years of "zero to three."

Rather than another year with too many of our children showing up on the doorsteps of our public schools ill-equipped to learn, unable to succeed, we must intervene. Why? Because these children are our future. And for these children, kindergarten is too late.

To save these children: We need a new mindset! We must accept responsibility for funding quality early childhood education for children who are at-risk.

If we do not act, we cannot:

? Break the cycle of poverty.

? Solve our drug problems.

? Solve our incarceration problems.

? Solve many of our health-care cost problems.

? Create the economic climate that we all desire.

? Attain a public education system in our community that works.

To address this challenge and to provide quality education to children from birth until they are old enough to enter a pre-kindergarten program, The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee has created an Early Childhood Education Scholarship program. Partnering with early childhood education centers that have achieved three-star certification from the state and a proven track record of successful learning programs and strong parental involvement.

We are relying on the centers to help us identify at-risk children who, but for this assistance, would be unable to access quality care. The majority of children we are helping are children of the "working poor," a designation bestowed upon families earning between $18,000 and $24,000 annually. These families earn too much to receive financial assistance from the state, but for them, quality care would be impossible to afford.

The Community Foundation requires the family and the center work to cover the remaining costs. The children reap the benefit of professional teachers who ensure they meet the appropriate developmental benchmarks.

This transformation requires a big investment. For every child we help, we commit to seeing them through this formative period. It will take, on average, $20,000 per child, which seems large until you compare it with the cost of NOT giving these kids the chance to succeed.

This isn't someone else's problem; it is one we must all own. At least we know where we must begin. But begin we must! We have the knowledge and capacity to fix our educational assembly line, preparing every child for success in school and in life. The continuity of high quality early childhood education for these children will be an investment that yields untold rewards.

Let's do more than just hope for a better future. Let's work to make it happen.

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Pre-K improves chances for success

If we consider the learning process as an assembly line ? we find that often our first reaction is to say the assembly line is broken in high school ? after all, that's where the dropouts occur.